


Numb Me Down to the Core

by lostandlonelybirds (RUNNFROMTHEAK)



Series: Dick Rare Pair Challenge 2020 [2]
Category: DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics)
Genre: Break Up, Cheating, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Infidelity, M/M, Unhappy Ending, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:35:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25063246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RUNNFROMTHEAK/pseuds/lostandlonelybirds
Summary: “Do you love him?” Dick asks him, but his tone is artic. Cold and dispassionate and everything Roy hates about their fights. He can take the anger. He can take the rage. He can take that fire and do something with it. But this?There’s nothing to do with this.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Roy Harper, Roy Harper/Jason Todd
Series: Dick Rare Pair Challenge 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1834162
Comments: 44
Kudos: 190
Collections: Dick Grayson Rare Pair Challenge





	Numb Me Down to the Core

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Tonight's for fighting](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17342234) by [crookedspoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon). 
  * Inspired by ['Til It Bleeds](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17686637) by [LuthienLuinwe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuthienLuinwe/pseuds/LuthienLuinwe). 



> not normally my cup of tea but spoon's fabulous fic (tonight's for fighting) and Lu's beautiful sequel ('til it bleeds) had me inspired and a little bit heartbroken, and eager for Roy's take on this situation. Please read the other two first, so that this one makes sense!!!! It references stuff from the other two, and believe me, they are *worth* the read!!!!
> 
> Note: made with permission from spoon and Lu, the creators of the first two in the series. I try to maintain the core of the stories, even with the few elements I added from Roy’s perspective. :)

Roy wants to say he hadn’t known it was Jason, that he’d thought it was Dick, but that is a lie. A goddamn lie. Roy’s a hell of a lot of things, but he likes to think a liar isn’t one of them. Recovering drug addict? sure. Half-way-to-alcoholic? definitely. Cheater? He is now. But a liar?

He’s honest in everything but his promises because those come dripping with disclaimers and half-truths. He doesn’t _lie_ , not exactly. He says it and he means it and he doesn’t always follow it ( _or ever follow it these days_ ) but he tries to be truthful.

‘ _This is the last time,’_ He’ll say to a distraught Dick, whiskey-taint already on his breath as he puts every ounce of energy into not stumbling. But he means it’s the last time this _week_ , and it just so happens to be the last day _of_ the week.

‘ _Only one drink,’_ he’ll text Dick after he’s already had three and well on his way to blacked-out-ville. But he means only one _more_ drink, and it’s _always_ only one more drink, so he’s never lying.

‘ _I’d do anything for you,’_ he’ll kiss into Dick’s shoulder as they both soak in post-orgasmic bliss. But he means he’ll _try_ to do anything for him, but he won’t. He can’t. Dick’s not the easiest to handle, but he doesn’t ask for much.

Love. Trust. Fidelity. Honesty.

Not that he’s ever given Dick what he deserves.

“ _Do you love him?”_ Dick asks him, but his tone is artic. Cold and dispassionate and everything Roy _hates_ about their fights. He can take the anger. He can take the rage. He can take that fire and do something with it. But this?

There’s nothing to do with this.

Because it had started with warmth. Jason’s always warm – he runs hotter than Dick as a side-effect of the Lazarus Pit – and he’s always _there_ when Roy’s on a bender and Dick’s nothing but ice, nothing but half-assed fights and cold glares and disappointment. Jason's there when Dick's pointed looks and small frowns and sad sighs send him running, when Dick tells him to leave for the night and Roy drinks until that doesn't hurt.

It starts with warmth, and it leads to an inferno, an addiction. He chases it, the desperate traces of affection when the liquor and fighting leaves him hollow, when he feels empty and lonely and sad as the alcohol stops numbing and the heartache sets in. He looks for warmth and he finds it in Jason’s heady scent.

He finds it in cigarettes and blood and bullets, the everyday cologne of his best friend. He finds it in a pulse that doesn’t taste like mangos or coconuts or whatever new body wash his boyfriend’s trying out. He finds it in chapped lips with a scar across the cupid’s bow and scarred hands with just as many calluses as his own. He finds it in someone he shouldn’t touch, shouldn’t kiss, shouldn’t _have_ for Dick’s sake and Jason’s sake and _morality’s sake_ , but he does anyway.

He hadn’t been thinking of Jason’s puppy-crush he’d nursed for years. He hadn’t been thinking of Dick’s blue eyes narrowed in accusation as he’d downed another bottle and left. He hadn't been thinking of it being _Jason_ , his best friend, or _Jason_ , Dick's little brother. He hadn’t been thinking of right and wrong and what he _should_ do and what he _shouldn’t_.

He’d been thinking of Dick being untouchable and distant and angry. He’d been thinking of Jason being close and easy and _there_. He'd been thinking it felt right. He’d thought, just for a moment, that he wanted to feel like _enough_ for someone, and Jason had been there, and Dick hadn’t been.

And the worst is the non-answer lingers on his tongue, bitter and vile as he thinks of Dick’s red-rimmed baby blues.

“ _Do you love him?”_

_“He’s my best friend…”_

He doesn’t know.

Roy doesn’t _fucking know_.

Would it have been different if it had been Kory instead of Jason? _Wally_ instead of Jason? Had it been because Jason had been there or because it had been _Jason_ there?

He’s left with questions and no answers, because he doesn’t know if he loves his best friend or hates him. He doesn’t know if he cheated because he’d been drunk and horny or because he’d been drunk and honest. He doesn’t know which is worse, because either he’d used Jason as a sex toy to get his rocks off, or he’d been lying this whole time and only been honest when drunk.

_A drunk mind speaks a sober heart_ , he’d read before, back when Dick had been passive-aggressively leaving him pamphlets on recovering from alcoholism and the signs of being an alcoholic – ‘ _Back when he’d cared,’_ Roy thinks.

He doesn’t know if he’d fucked a warm body or fucked _Jason Peter Todd_ , doesn’t know if he’d cheated with a ready-hole or Dick’s little brother and Roy’s best friend.

_Mistake…mistake…mistake…_

_“It was a mistake…”_

But _had_ it been a mistake? Had it been drunken stupidity – meaningless hormones and a warm body – or had it been a long-time coming?

He wants to say _yes, it had been a huge mistake_ , because he fucking loves Dick Grayson. He loves Dick Grayson with a fervor he’s never felt, with a passion that’s all-encompassing and all-consuming. It eats at him, _gnaws_ at him, and sometimes it’s all he can think about, all he can do and all he can handle – _love_ , loving _Dick_.

Because Dick loves with all he has, all he _is_ , and he practically signs over his body and his heart and his soul when he loves someone. He loves with an intensity Roy can’t match, no matter how hard he tries. He cares with his _whole_ self, and no matter how broken that self may be, it’s a hell of a lot more put together than Roy. Loving Dick is a habit at this point, as basic and easy as breathing. It’s easy to love him even with all his quirks, it’s easy to want him and desire him and feel an _ache_ for him. But it’s not easy to have him love you back, not really. All that love and emotion and _vulnerability_ laser-focused on Roy, all those things willingly signed over like it’s _normal_ when Roy can never offer the same.

And Jason…Jason’s always been easy. Dealing with him is like smoking a cigarette after sex or drinking a bottle of beer after a week-long mission chasing assassins – it’s like coming home. Dealing with Dick is like wading through the ocean – unpredictable as hell, and always with the risk of bloodshed. Jason doesn’t expect anything, and Dick expects…Dick expects more than Roy thinks he can give.

After all, he’s prepared to beg, to grovel down on his hands and knees until they’re scraped and bleeding, but he knows Dick like he knows a bow. He knows the furrow in Dick’s brow when he’s trying to keep calm. He knows the twitch of Dick’s mouth when he’s disgusted. He knows the ice in Dick’s voice when he shouts.

He knows Dick as well as he knows everything, and he doesn’t know his name the way it comes out of Dick’s mouth – like poison, like _dirt_ , like something slimy Dick can’t stand.

So Dick tells him to leave, tells him with ice in his voice and tears in his eyes, and Roy complies. Roy leaves, because he’s never hated anything more than hurting someone he loves, and he can tell that the sight of him hurts Dick.

He leaves, curses dropping like angry tears from his mouth as he curses _himself_ and curses _Jason_ and curses _Dick_ and curses _alcohol_.

Because Roy shouldn’t have leaned in first.

Because Jason shouldn’t have kissed back.

Because Dick shouldn’t have sent him running.

Because alcohol shouldn’t have made him forget everything that matters.

Shouldn’t. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t.

Even as Roy blows up Dick’s phone to no avail, he knows it’s hopeless, knows it’s pointless. Dick’s an acrobat, and once he makes up his mind, he doesn’t change it. He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t second guess, not when that means the difference between life and death above the ground.

And when he looks at Roy like he can’t stand the sight of him, like he can’t look at him, Roy knows.

Or maybe Roy had known before, when Jason had called and ruined any chance of Roy explaining it to Dick _himself_ , coming clean _himself_.

He still doesn’t know if he would’ve come clean, still doesn’t know if he _has_ a best friend anymore.

What he does know is this:

Dick Grayson isn’t his anymore, and never will be again.

**Author's Note:**

> thoughts?


End file.
